Learning to Code: The Roadmap I Wish I Had Been Given - Jimmy Li

For someone without programming experience, starting in web development can feel very daunting. You’re in that uncomfortable first stage of competence (“you don’t know what you don’t know”), so you might think that you have to spend months assembling a foundation in computer science before you can build a website of any sophistication. Not so! Web development and CS are different enough that you can start learning the former without having a strong base in the latter. I say this largely based on my own experience. This blog post is an attempt to help others get started in web development.

About - Hacker SchoolHacker School is a free, full-time, immersive school in New York for becoming a better programmer. We're like a writers' retreat for programmers. People come from around the world to spend 12 weeks writing code and growing as programmers. We run three sessions a year, called batches, and each batch has about 60 people.Three False ConstraintsOnce again, a call goes out to make games more culturally meaningful. I agree very much with the sentiment, but I've always been frustrated with how designers set themselves up for failure due to the constraints placed on the problem. In mathematics, computer science, and physics there is a the concept of a 'hard' problem.

MattDeBoard.netwritten on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 I posted a very brief response to a post on HackerNews yesterday challenging the notion that 8 weeks of guided tutelage on Ruby on Rails is not going to produce someone who you might consider a "junior RoR developer." It did not garner many upvotes so I figured that like most conversation on the Internet it faded into the general ambient chatter.how indie gaming is reviving the Britsoft sPlayStation killed Britsoft. We didn't realise it at the time, but it took a cold, technological scythe to the British development community. And Lara Croft, that gloating figurehead of the PlayStation Generation, once viewed as a symbol of this region's success and creativity, should now been read as a harbinger of doom. Because, nothing was ever the same again. Of course, PlayStation didn't destroy the whole business of developing major videogames in the UK – that's still happening, though largely for foreign paymasters.

How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal SummaryDebugging is the cornerstone of being a programmer. The first meaning of the verb to debug is to remove errors, but the meaning that really matters is to see into the execution of a program by examining it. A programmer that cannot debug effectively is blind.More Design PatternsWriting Serialised Data to a String Instead of a File in C# Instead of writing the serialised data to a file, which can be done using using (Stream s = File.Create("foo.xml")), you might want to have just the string – maybe because you want to send it to a server? You can use the StringWriter class to do so:Where can I find problems - CS101Short coding exercises in Python and Java. Interactive lessons in Python, JavaScript, HTML, etc. Math problems that usually require programming. Difficult problems from coding competitions. Always copy code examples, and get them running. When alternatives occur to you, try them out.

5 Simple Ways To Improve Game MenusThis small article is mainly targeted at hobby game developer. I think that the title menu of your game should receive proper attention, since it is the first screen of your game the user will ever see. And we don’t want our user to start with a strange feeling, don’t we? In this article I will show you 5 really simple ways to improve your title menu without any design skill at all. AssumptionsHow I Learned to ProgramProgramming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done. Programming taught me that life should be fun, filled with creativity, and lived to the fullest. Programming taught me that anything is possible; I can do anything I want using only my mind. Programming also taught me that learning is fun. It showed me that the more you know, the more power you have. Programming showed me that a life filled with learning is a life worth living.

let's talk about jumpingThis article conveniantly leaves out a few points when comparing games to bias one's opinion towards his point of view. Examples: The original super mario brothers had a built in "run faster than should be possbile" button. Holding down the fire button makes you run. As soon as you figure this out it becomes ridiculous to not run constantly and thus you are holding down a button the ENTIRE GAME, when it would have simply made more sense to make mario run that speed constantly and use the fire button to slow down. In both mertroid and zelda games, the add on's had nothing to do with the puzzle and challenge as we (originally) didn't know what add-ons were in the game or what they did.

NbK - 17 - the cookbook and pensive way of doing thingsIt's been a while since I was wearing gloves and mixing solutions, but I find myself a lot of times still in a wet-lab mindset when it comes to how I do things. A lot of the daily routines in the lab is center on doing things. Like putting on gloves and mixing solutions.So You Want to Be a Game Programmer?I often get email from people looking to get their first job in the game industry asking me for advice. What are companies looking for in candidates for entry-level programming positions? How come it’s so difficult to land a job?Become a Good Programmer in Six Really Hard StepsOne of the more popular topics here on the GDNet forums goes something like this: "Hi, I just [bought a computer | wrote a simple game | discovered a game engine] and I want to know where to go from here. I'd like to [accomplish some particular goal] eventually. What do I need to learn to get there?" First of all, understand that Peter Norvig nailed this on the head a long time ago: it takes ten years to learn to be a programmer.

A Video Game Development BlogNovember 17th, 2008 Posted in Reviews, Featured | No Comments » A Digital Dreamer takes a close look at this gem of a PS3 game that every designer should take the time to play. We had heard a lot of great things about LittleBigPlanet for the Playstation 3 months before it was released. We heard things like the way the characters were designed and showed emotions brought instant smiles on the faces of pretty much anyone who had a chance to play it.